


Caffè Lungo

by bitochondria



Category: Wiseguy
Genre: Angst and Porn, Canon-Typical Behavior, Episode: s01e5 The Birthday Surprise, First Time, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Jealousy, M/M, Oral Sex, POV Third Person Limited, Power Dynamics, actual sex between vinnie and sonny is as consensual as you can get when one person is undercover, implication of non-con is the same past prison rape they keep bringing up in the show, vinnie and sonny fuck and vinnie thinks a lot about what a terrible idea that is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:18:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24304990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitochondria/pseuds/bitochondria
Summary: Trying to distract Vinnie from everything that happened with Danny, Sonny chooses a surprising topic of conversation. Jealousy bubbles to the surface, followed by an admission, and they end up back at Vinnie's suite. Vinnie wonders how deep is too deep, and wishes all of this didn't come so easily.Takes place in the middle of Ep. 5, The Birthday Surprise. Reasonably canon-compliant. Sad boners for everyone.
Relationships: Sonny Steelgrave/Vinnie Terranova
Kudos: 5





	Caffè Lungo

“So did you really have a prison husband?” 

Vinnie stopped in his tracks, just long enough to look at Sonny’s face. More like a trip— just a little stumble— than a hard stop. Sonny was glancing at him through narrowed eyes, just at the corners. 

Vinnie swallowed, and tried to smile. His lip twitched up and he made a noise halfway between a laugh and an exhalation. 

“I don’t know, is there an answer that’s going to make you lose any respect you have for me?”

Sonny laughed, genuinely. A real knee-slapper. 

“Nah, just curious.” His teeth flashed in the dark. 

He had insisted, after they got back from the deal at the baths, that they go get some late night dinner. After that, he had insisted on coffee. And then, a walk. It was obvious he was trying to keep Vinnie’s mind off Danny, and Vinnie appreciated it despite the transparency of the ruse. Hopefully Frank would have an answer for him tomorrow. In the meantime, he let Sonny entertain him.

However, he hadn’t expected the topic of conversation to turn to prison sex. 

Sonny continued. “Just never heard that line before. You said something to the chick at the match like, ‘would it impress you more if I beat the guy up or fucked him,’ right?” He laughed, again, always more entertained by his own lines than other people’s. “I thought she was going to slap you for a second, there, but she actually did seem kinda impressed, didn’t she?” 

The night air cooled his lips as he licked them. Vinnie shoved his hands in his pockets. 

“Yeah, she did,” he admitted. He had actually let that slip because he was kind of tired of her— he figured she’d lay off if she thought he was damaged goods. The majority of women— particularly social climbers like  _ every  _ fucking broad Sonny brought anywhere— didn’t usually want to think about their prospectives getting railed. 

“Well, did you?” Sonny was still smiling, halfway between boyish and predatory. Vinnie found himself halfway between charmed and repulsed. 

He could lie, of course.

Feign machismo and tell Sonny,  _ nah, I beat the shit out of anyone who looked at me halfway queer _ . He lied to Sonny all the time. It was his  _ job _ to lie to Sonny.

Or he could laugh it off, turn the whole thing into a joke. Nudge Sonny in the ribs and say something vaguely obscene. 

But he sort of wanted to tell him the truth. 

He had tried, obliquely, to bring it up with Frank— why he had tried he couldn’t begin to fathom— and Frank had changed the subject so quickly it felt like they were trying out for Nascar. 

He breathed out slowly. 

“When I first got in I fucked up big time. Stepped hard on this one guy's toes and…” He paused. No need to get explicit. Sonny could read between the lines. “Paid for it. Not long after, I got pretty friendly with this other guy—” He laughed, thinking about Clay. Crack your skull as soon as look at you, but a real joker, too. Always had a book with him, like some kind of jailhouse professor. “—real big dude—and when he found out, he beat the shit out of him so bad the fucker was eating through a straw for a month. I never asked him to do it,” he sighed, realizing suddenly how much his prison friend and Sonny shared in common. The unasked for favors. The hair-trigger temper. The value of loyalty and a very personal kind of justice above all else. “And he never asked for nothing in return, but,” he trailed off, feeling painfully exposed. Like he had wandered out onto a bit of sea ice naked. He grinned, turning the rest of it into a joke. “And he wasn't too bad looking or nothing, so I figured I could do a lot worse.”

He shrugged, just his shoulders, without taking his hands from his pockets. “He was a pretty good guy.”

Sonny was quiet for a moment, his chin jutted out, his eyes on the horizon. Vinnie had no sense of how he would react to the revelation that he had  _ chosen _ to get on his knees for this guy, but with each passing second of silence, he feared more acutely that he had made the wrong choice in telling him. He doubted Sonny had much tolerance for fairies, and he had crept a little too close to revealing that, even out of the joint, his proclivities ran in both directions.

But Sonny let his head flop down, eyes on his shoes.

“I’m glad someone was looking out for you.” He stuffed his own hands in his pockets, posture a mirror of Vinnie's. “When he gets out, you wanna give him a call, I'm sure we've got a job somewhere.”

His mouth crinkled into a lopsided smile, teeth showing on one side. A mixture of sheepish and sly that made Vinnie's head spin.

“Unless you think I'd be jealous.”

Vinnie's chest—no, the hollow right under his sternum, running down to his solar plexus—filled with something like hot syrup. Like someone was making struffoli and he was the container they were keeping the honey in.

_ Jealous? _

Sonny was a monster, but Vinnie's dick had missed that memo, somewhere along the way. The third day on his payroll— the  _ third day _ , well before the sobering realization that, actually, he kind of liked the guy—Sonny had threatened someone with creative dismemberment, and then turned and winked at Vinnie. He had felt his face go hot, like a schoolboy caught with a dirty mag. All that charm, all that confidence, wasted on a creep like Sonny. His smile was nothing more than the bright colors on a poison frog.

But Vinnie found himself wanting a little taste, anyway.

He snorted. “Sonny, why the hell would  _ you _ be jealous of my prison fuckbuddy?”

“Well, I like to know where your loyalties lie, got it?”

Vinnie raised one bushy eyebrow. “You’re kiddin’ me. You know where my loyalties lie, Sonny.”

Sonny narrowed his eyes slightly, a sharp, carnivorous smile settling on his lips. “Hey, I just gotta know where I rank, y’know?” He tipped his chin up, pursing his lips slightly through the smile. “I’m insecure like that.”

Vinnie laughed, shaking his head. Something in the way he said it made him feel a little like Sonny's property. He wanted to hate that. Hating it would have been a lot easier.

They walked the rest of the way to the hotel in silence. Sonny could be a real blabbermouth sometimes, but he had his contemplative moments, too. And, Vinnie admitted, the two of them didn’t really need to fill up the air. He liked talking to Sonny, but he also liked that they were both comfortable with quiet.

In the elevator, Sonny looked at his watch. Apropos of nothing, he proclaimed, “I like seeing you with a beautiful girl on your arm.” 

Vinnie knew he was making some kind of face. He tamped it down into neutrality before Sonny could look at him. 

“Y’know? Makes me feel like I’m doing right by you, like you’re getting the things you oughta.” 

“Okay,” Vinnie agreed, following even though he was unclear on Sonny’s intended destination. 

The door opened out onto Vinnie’s floor, and they made their way into his suite. 

Sonny stood in the middle of the room, hands back in his pockets. He looked out the window. “What was his name?” 

“What?”

“Don’t ‘what’ me. Your pal.” Sonny looked back over his shoulder, his expression unreadable. 

Vinnie furrowed his brow. “Look, Sonny, what does it matter—”

He turned around abruptly. “I just wanna know, alright?”

“If you’re gonna be weird about it,” Vinnie sighed, crossing his arms tightly in front of his chest, “Then  _ I’m _ gonna wish I lied.”

Sonny scowled. “The more I think about it, I…” He leaned back against the back of the armchair. “It’s different with a chick. Vinnie Terranova with a beautiful girl is… it’s right, it’s just you taking what you deserve, it’s proof that you’re getting an adequate level of respect, it’s—” He looked down and huffed out a sigh, picking at the elbow of his suit. “But Vinnie Terranova with some big goon, that’s just…” The corners of his mouth pulled back, like he had licked something bitter. “It makes me…”

Well. Now the hammer fell—he  _ had _ taken it too well. And now that he had had time to process what he had heard,  _ now _ he was disgusted.  _ That’s what you get for being vulnerable with a fucking crime lord _ .

“Sick?” Vinnie proffered. “Revolted?” 

Sonny’s attention snapped from his suit to Vinnie. “What? No.” He shifted his posture, switching his weight to his other leg. “Angry.”

Vinnie suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. “I’m not some girl from the neighborhood, Sonny, you don’t need to be angry on my behalf. My honor’s intact.” 

Eyes riveted to Vinnie’s face, Sonny seemed unable to figure out where he wanted his hands. He stood all the way back up and anxiously ran his tongue over his lower lip.

“I just don’t like the idea of someone else,” his eyes narrowed, and he half-hissed the next word, “ _ with _ you like that.” He crossed his arms again, twitchy as all hell. “Like I said, it’s different with a girl. Girls we can…” Sonny’s face scrunched up as he searched for a word. “Share.”

And they had shared. Sonny got a rise out of passing along his seconds to Vinnie. More surprisingly, he also seemed real keen on fucking any girl Vinnie had had his hands on. Vinnie had pegged it as a power thing— Sonny not-so-subtly reminding him that anything that was Vinnie’s ultimately was Sonny’s, too— but he had let it go because, honestly, it was actually kind of a turn on. Once or twice Sonny had invited up a few girls and stuck around himself, and Vinnie had had to pretend he wasn’t getting just as much out of watching him as any other part of the experience. That when Sonny’s hand brushed his shoulder or his knee he didn’t start imagining it was his mouth on him and not some Steelgrave groupie’s. Sonny made something inside him bristle and bloom, and he hated it, and he hated himself for it, but he could hardly pretend it wasn’t happening. 

“Sharing  _ with _ you is one thing. But I don’t like the idea that I’d have to share you with someone else.” 

Sonny had said it like a threat, all posture and spit, but it kind of sounded like he had just admitted he considered Vinnie ‘his.’ Maybe it  _ was _ a threat. Sonny looked like he was going to fucking bite someone. 

Vinnie’s mouth quirked up to one side involuntarily. “What, do you wanna fuck me now, too?” 

It was a joke, of course. 

An attempt to defuse whatever storm was brewing inside Sonny, whatever burst of electric anger was about to spill out of him.

Sonny’s eyebrows went up for a split second, and he bowed his head to one side, just slightly, like he was demonstrating he was listening. And then he gave Vinnie a long hard stare over the top of his nose. If he pushed the defiant chin tilt any further, he’d be looking at the ceiling. 

“Oh, yeah, like I don’t see the way you look at me, like if you could just get your hands on me for one second, you’d stop feeling so  _ hungry _ .”

He stepped forward: a challenge. 

Vinnie had, at some point, stepped closer himself. He didn’t remember doing it.

_ How could a man who he concealed everything from clock him so damn easily? _

“So yeah I wanna fuck you, ‘cause you’re a goddamn tease.”

And then his hands were inside Sonny’s suit, and Sonny’s tongue was in his mouth.

And it was the worst idea he had ever had, and Sonny tasted like expensive tobacco and strong espresso, and he smelled like good cologne, and his buttons came so easily undone under Vinnie’s fingers. And there they were, pressed together at the waist, mouths hot and hungry, Sonny’s fingers a little too tight in his hair. And then they were both out of their jackets, and Sonny’s other hand was on his ass, and Vinnie’s dick was like a goddamn steel rod, hot from the furnace and molten at its core. Sonny’s nose bonked against his and Sonny’s teeth were rough against his tongue and Sonny’s hands were hot in his hair and on his body and  _ god _ , Vinnie begged silently,  _ have mercy on my soul _ .

Sonny pulled his mouth away, landing back flat on his heels. 

_ Had he been standing on his tiptoes?  _

_ God, why was that so hot. _

His fingers stayed tight in Vinnie’s hair. 

“Suck me off.” 

Vinnie swallowed, blinking rapidly, his skin on fire. 

A choke of laughter squeaked out. “Is that an order?” 

Sonny pulled Vinnie closer, dragging their cocks together through silk. 

One corner of his mouth crept up. 

“Do you want it to be an order?”

He  _ needed  _ it to be an order. If it was an order, then he was doing it for the cover. Loads of people fucked to keep their covers, and hey, at least Sonny wasn’t some syphilitic octogenarian or something. 

If it wasn’t an order, then he was doing this because he wanted to. Because Sonny  _ liked _ him. Because he liked Sonny, despite everything. Because Sonny lit something up in him and he wanted to douse everything with oil and let it burn.

He didn’t want it to be an order. He wanted to choose to do this.

But he didn’t want to think about what that was going to mean in the future. 

Sonny brushed Vinnie’s lips with his thumb, suddenly tender. 

“You okay?” He grabbed Vinnie’s cheek, half smiling. “It’s not actually an order, you know.”

Vinnie laughed, bringing his own hand up to meet Sonny’s, giving himself just enough time to come up with a lame excuse for going walleyed for a second.

“You didn’t… do this with Greco, did you?”

Sonny almost spit with laughter. 

“You got a jealous streak, too, don’tcha, Vince?” Sonny’s eyes strayed to Vinnie’s lips, and then lower. He trailed his hands down the sides of Vinnie’s body, and with dreamy, half-lidded affection, growled, “I got better taste than that, babe.” 

Vinnie grabbed Sonny around the waist and by the back of the neck, and kissed him hard. He pressed his tongue into his mouth, letting the taste of cigar smoke and caffeine poison the last functioning part of his brain. He undid Sonny’s belt and dropped to his knees.

He freed Sonny’s cock and palmed it. Sonny’s fingers wound tight in his hair as he ran the tip of his tongue along the underside of his erection, looking up to watch his reaction. Sonny closed his eyes and bit the inside of his lip. He flattened his tongue and slid his half-open mouth back down the other way, squeezing slightly with his hand. 

“Shit, Vinnie,” Sonny muttered, barely audible. 

Vinnie licked his way back to the head, tracing circles, varying pressure as he rose, and then slid his lips over the tip of his cock and slowly, teasingly made his way back down, until he could feel Sonny at the back of his throat. He looked up again, waiting for Sonny to meet his eyes. 

Sonny looked down at him and smiled like he was drunk, an open-mouthed exhalation of pleasure with an upward twitch of his eyebrows. His adam’s apple bobbed with a reflexive swallow. Vinnie closed his eyes and pushed Sonny’s cock  _ just _ that much farther into his mouth, his lips brushing the skin of his pelvis. Sonny’s hand wove tighter in his hair. 

He slipped his lips over the hot, smooth surface of Sonny’s erection until his tongue grazed the soft ridge at the tip, and then plunged his mouth back to its base, gathering speed as he found a comfortable rhythm. His hand on Sonny’s thigh, he could feel the muscles tensing with each roll of his tongue. 

He thought about what he had said to Frank—  _ god, why the fuck was he thinking about Frank at a time like this _ — that no one had ever been in so deep as him, and how that had suddenly taken on the tone of double entendre. Perhaps it would be more truthful to say Sonny was in deep, at this point.

Vinnie could feel his own cock straining at his pants, probably leaving a wet spot in the front of drawers. The sensation of Sonny’s dick rubbing against his tongue, pressing past his lips, coupled with the slightly acid tug in his hair— it was making him want to knock Sonny to the ground and just rub himself all over him until he came, rough and messy, all over his perfectly tailored suit. 

He was fairly ambivalent on taking it up the ass, even before what had happened in lockup—he had had a  _ handful _ of experiences that left him seeing stars, panting for more like a dog in heat— but most of the time it just felt kind of slimy and invasive. Sucking cock, on the other hand, he was good at, and honestly enjoyed. There was nothing quite like the feeling of a man going a little crazy, cursing and gasping, as he strained against your mouth. Of some usually tough SOB shaking and pulling your hair and coming undone— he felt like he was  _ good  _ at it. 

He glanced up at Sonny, whose hips were starting to twitch involuntarily against his mouth. His lips were parted slightly, and his eyes kept squeezing shut tighter, like clockwork as Vinnie swallowed around his cock. 

_ Maybe they could get a deal for him _ , he contemplated.

Sometimes you had to lie to yourself when a man was about to come in your mouth.

Sonny bucked against him, pulling his head closer as he fucked him.

The power he had over Sonny right now— he could make him beg, he could stop and leave him cold— hell, he could probably slide his fingers inside him and get Sonny to say ‘more, please.’ 

_ If he could just—  _

“Fuck, Vin,” Sonny gasped.

_ If there was some way maybe he could give the OCB something bigger than Sonny— _

Sonny’s other hand, the one that wasn’t buried in Vinnie’s curls, shakily brushed the hair off Vinnie’s forehead. He looked Vinnie in the eye for as long as he could, and then Vinnie could see the moment where everything went autonomous— his shoulder twitched, and his eyes closed, and he thrust so hard against Sonny’s face that he nearly choked him. 

He spat, “God, oh—” 

And came, hot, down Vinnie’s throat. Salt hit the back of his tongue and he swallowed, coaxing Sonny through each twitch. 

When Sonny unclenched, his legs no longer shaking, Vinnie slowly withdrew his mouth. 

He licked his lips and looked up at Sonny.

Sonny was breathing like they had just gone three rounds. 

His hand relaxed in Vinnie’s hair, and he grinned, all lopsided boyish charm. 

“Well  _ fuck me _ , Vincenzo,” he laughed, his hair a little dissheveled, his pants around his ankles. 

“I think that’s what I just did,” Vinnie snorted, pulling himself to standing. 

He didn’t expect reciprocation— Sonny didn’t seem like the type. But he would probably be okay with him jerking it, at least— might even like to watch. 

Sonny pulled his briefs up, leaving his pants in a heap on the ground, and threw himself down on the couch. He pursed his lips and beckoned. 

“C’mere.” 

When Vinnie didn’t immediately follow, he beckoned again. 

“I’m talkin’ to you, bud.” 

Vinnie snorted and walked over to the couch. 

Sonny looped his fingers in the front of Vinnie’s belt and pulled him between his legs. 

“I don’t kneel,” he explained, undoing his buckle and unzipping his fly. He wriggled his eyebrows suggestively, and despite how ridiculous he looked, it made Vinnie want to fuck him just that much more. 

Sonny pulled on the waistband of his underwear and looked up at Vinnie, a gentle questioning expression softening his features. He tugged down, and Vinnie’s cock popped out, stiff and wet at the tip.

“Jesus, Vinnie, you oughta try out for the Yanks with this fuckin’ baseball bat you’re packing.” He brushed the tips of his fingers over the ridge of his head, and softly down to the base. He was wearing his ring still, and the image of his hand, gentle on Vinnie’s skin, seared itself into his brain. Gold and obsidian and flesh on flesh, and then his grip tightened, just enough, and he started stroking Vinnie off. His eyes kept darting between Vinnie’s face and his cock.

Vinnie tried to stall the inevitable a little by making small talk.

“You’ve seen my dick before, Sonny,” he grinned, his voice only shaking a little at the end. 

“Yeah, but never quite this  _ close _ ,” Sonny rebutted. His face was all smooth charm as he leaned in and kissed the side, right where the shaft met the head. 

Vinnie thought he might come right then, splattering that smug, bewitching smile with semen. That image made him bite the inside of his lip. 

“A little sensitive, huh?” Sonny’s eyes flashed up, and he brushed his lips and tongue along the curve of a vein, wet and hot. There was a challenge in his voice and on his face as he teased, “Just from giving head?” He breathed out, slowly, the air on Vinnie’s cock making him shiver a little. “Almost makes me feel ready to go again, just thinkin’ about it.” 

“What can I say,” Vinnie almost gasped, watching Sonny wrap his lips around his cock, “I know how to have a good time.” 

Even with his mouth stuffed full, Sonny’s cheeks dimpled and the corners of his eyes crinkled up. Vinnie wanted to touch him so badly.

He reached out and gently rested his hand on the top of Sonny’s head, not squeezing, not pulling, and Sonny looked up at him, the heat of his mouth sliding up and down his length. After a few slow, tentative slides, Sonny started picking up his pace, and Vinnie found himself cupping his jaw and ear. 

_ He looks so damn vulnerable like this. _

_ There has to be a way to… _

Sonny’s eyes closed, his long lashes— they were  _ so  _ long, god—fluttering together. His tongue kept sliding just out of time with his mouth, swirling around the sides and running hot lines down the middle of his shaft. He obviously wasn’t going to try to get all of Vinnie in his mouth— contorting himself to someone else was never going to be a Sonny Steelgrave move, not even during sex—but he was surprisingly good at this. No way this man was new to the cocksucking game. Vinnie wondered who it had been, and why. Favors? Paying fealty to higher ups? Just… other guys from the neighborhood, playing around as kids? What was Sonny’s  _ history _ , really?

_ God, there had to be some kind of way to—  _

_ A way to what? _

He was under to catch this guy. Didn’t matter how dextrous his tongue was, or how damn cute he was when he smiled genuinely. Didn’t matter that he was loyal and funny and all kinds of fucked up. Didn’t matter that he trusted him so damn much that he would provide him with this kind of blackmail scot free. Didn’t matter that now that he had tasted the dart frog’s poison, he wanted a goddamn glass of it. 

Sonny made a little noise again his cock and Vinnie lost it; he started fucking Sonny’s mouth for real, a little rougher than he meant it, desperate to memorize every second of that wet friction against his skin, every glimpse of Sonny’s face as he let Vinnie use him. Sonny was half-hard again in his briefs, and Vinnie was over the edge, the muscles in his thighs spasming as his cock twitched hard against Sonny’s tongue and the roof of his mouth. He felt himself spilling, the space just below his stomach going hard and then hot, the muscles clenching as he spent himself. Sonny swallowed, admirably, and pulled away with a line of cum and spit stretching from his mouth to Vinnie’s dick. 

With a puckish grin, Sonny swiped the back of his thumb over his lip, and looked up at Vinnie like the cat who’d caught the canary. 

He winked, and Vinnie wanted to throw himself out the window. 

What the  _ fuck _ was he doing. 

“Happy early birthday,” Sonny practically purred, eyebrows shooting up, top teeth pressing almost coquettishly into his lower lip.

Vinnie tried to remind himself that he had just fucked a murderer, but that face was like bleach to the reasoning centers of his brain. Sonny was just Sonny, the beat in his veins throbbed. The post-coital glow whispered to him:  _ there is absolutely going to be a way to make this work for everyone. You can play both sides as long as you need to, and convince Sonny to help you testify. Frank will get his man, and well… you’ll get yours, right? _

Or, more realistically, he sighed, a couple more nights like tonight and he might find himself a made man for real. 

He crossed his arms, smiling down at Sonny. 

_ Turn it into a joke, Vincenzo. _

“That why you swallowed?”

“You  _ wound _ me,” Sonny scoffed. “I swallowed because I’m a gentleman.” 

He slapped Vinnie’s ass. Hard. 

“Get your pants on, sweetcheeks, we got work to do tomorrow.” He snaked one hand up under Vinnie’s shirt and touched his stomach. “Maybe next time we’ll finish taking our clothes off.”

Vinnie helped him up from the couch, and Sonny looked at him like he was made of diamonds. Sonny hooked him hard around the middle, almost like he was going to grapple him to the floor, and then roughly kissed where his jaw met his ear. 

“I’m the only man you touch,” he whispered, a feral bite to his voice, clutching at Vinnie’s coat. “Got it?”

Vinnie brushed the hair off Sonny’s forehead.

“I ain’t got no other man to touch, Sonny.” 

That, at least, wasn’t a lie. 

_ Who the hell else was he going to get his hands on, Frank? That’d be the day. _

Sonny grabbed Vinnie’s chin and looked him hard in the eye. A threat, run through with ribbons of affection. Like cream in black, bitter coffee. A shot pulled too long and sweetened up to disguise the astringency. “Good. Keep it that way.” 

They stayed, eyes locked, pressed together, hands on one another, for just a moment, and then Sonny patted Vinnie squarely on the cheek and turned back for his pants. They said goodnight, Sonny all smiles, and Vinnie was left alone. 

At first, he found himself grappling with the sinking feeling that he had plunged deeper than he might be able to extricate himself. That he was neck deep in a swamp of lies and guilt and lust, and that the bottom kept sucking at his feet, pulling him down, down, past his last gasp of air, past any chance of escape. Bile filled his belly as he paced around the suite, making sure there was no evidence of their tryst. In the shower, he thought about Dermott, and the hot water ran cold over his body. Lying down in bed, he thought about how fast he’d be off the case if Frank ever found he sucked off the damn mark, and how fast he’d probably lose his badge the moment they figured out he hadn’t even been coerced into it. 

But then, he thought about Sonny’s hands in his hair, and Sonny’s smile as he beckoned him to the couch, and Sonny’s mouth, hot and welcoming. And he thought about his promise of  _ next time _ , and pictured next time happening here, with Sonny beside him in this comically enormous bed. He fell asleep thinking about Sonny’s body pressed against his, warmth settling in his stomach like good wine. 

The same feeling suffused him again, two mornings later, when Sonny came to pick him up from holding, all sunshine and soft looks from over the tops of his sunglasses. Even as he berated him for his inability to outrun the cops, he kept looking at him with a tenderness that jellied Vinnie’s knees. Vinnie half wanted to kiss him on the courthouse steps.

Until they got in the car and Sonny revealed his  _ surprise _ . 

Initially, Vinnie was horrified.

Sonny had killed a man for him. Killed a man and dressed up his corpse like a gift. His body felt cold and heavy as he scanned Kiki’s greying face for any sign this was a joke. Corpse paint on an unconscious man, or a rubber lookalike. But no. There was a human body, contorted and stiff, in Sonny’s backseat. He tried to keep his face as neutral as he could, tamping down on the desire to throw Sonny out of the car and onto the sidewalk, or to run back inside and get Frank. 

But on the other hand, he mused, letting the traitor thoughts slip in behind his mask of disgust, he had threatened to kill Kiki himself, hadn’t he?

And when Frank had told him Kiki was probably going to walk, he had seriously thought about it. And now the deed was done, and the blood was technically on someone else’s hands. Someone who would be going to prison for a long time, anyway.

He looked at Sonny, who was grinning, pleased with himself beyond all measure.

Sonny was like a cat, bringing him a dead bird. 

Sonny had thought about the story he told about Clay— that they had shacked up after Clay did him a favor he had never asked for— and chosen a gift that meant the same thing. 

His smile, strangely guileless, said it all. He knew Vinnie was hurting, and he had done what he could to alleviate that hurt. 

It was wrong, and  _ he _ was wrong, and Vinnie knew he should hate him. He was a killer. A totally remorseless killer who could present a dead man to someone with a smile and a wink, like it was something  _ cute _ . 

And Vinnie kind of wanted to kiss him for it.

“What’s a matter, Vin?” Sonny touched Vinnie’s knee, brow furrowed. “You don’t like it.” 

“Sonny…” Vinnie decided, once again, to tell the truth. “I’m just a little caught off guard, is all. I’m feeling a little like…” He thought about Kiki testifying against Sonny, and retiring somewhere warm. About Frank’s insistence that Danny’s life carried no more weight than any random hype or hustler that Kiki or the Zaratzos had gotten killed. He breathed out through his nose and continued. “Like you’re the only person who’s really thinking about what I want. That you’ve got my back in a way no one else does.”

Sonny glanced out the window, just a touch paranoid. 

He planted his hand more firmly on Vinnie’s thigh, and gave him a long, serious look. 

“Of course I got your back. We take care of each other.” 

Vinnie swallowed, and placed his hand over Sonny’s. Sonny smiled and interlaced their fingers, and Vinnie tried not to think too hard about what  _ taking care of _ was really going to look like when all this was over. 

**Author's Note:**

> "Hannah, are you just going to write like, a single fic for every old slash fandom ever?"  
> "Yes, and you can't stop me."
> 
> So, I've heard that Birthday Surprise may have aired out of order, because there's a reference to it being mid-September in the episode, and then in Ep.6 (One on One) someone says something about it being summer (or there's a newspaper with a summer date on it or something), meaning either episode 6 happened before episode 5... or that nearly a year has passed between 5 and 6. 
> 
> Frankly I don't think it matters that much, because the episodes could work in either order, and I'm torn between feeling like I should go by the dates (meaning Sonny's mistrust of Vinnie in One on One happens before they come to this "agreement") or the airing order (meaning the get just a little bit more time to be A Thing together before things go sour.) They both work for MAXIMUM ANGST in different ways, I guess.
> 
> Anyway. You get a sad boner! And you get a sad boner! EVERYONE GETS A SAD BONER!


End file.
